5 ms·
iTunes U was a big step in the proliferation of higher-quality education to the masses. It's nice to see Universities like Stanford spearhead revolutionary inno
by robjohnson 15y ago
iTunes U was a big step in the proliferation of higher-quality education to the masses. It's nice to see Universities like Stanford spearhead revolutionary innovations to give the opportunity of learning from world class academicians to people who would have otherwise never dreamed of it. Bravo!
- aerique 15y agoWhat did iTunes do? I'm not really up-to-date on all things Apple.
- andysinclair 15y agoiTunes U (as in U for University) is a section of iTunes where you will find a whole host of University courses to download and watch. I mention this to many people and there seems to be very little awareness that all this high quality content is available on iTunes. There are some great courses available (most for free), in fact I have just finished the Stanford iPhone programming course by Paul Hegarty which I highly recommend.
- aerique 15y agoThanks for the reply. While I do have an iPhone I try to avoid iTunes (I used it twice to update my phone since I got it two years a go). The programming course does sound interesting though I could use a good course to supplement my self-thought knowledge of the platform.
- watty 15y agoI don't think iTunes U has anything to do with this.
- javert 15y agoiTunes U was a big step in the proliferation... A big step backwards, from what I can tell. Sharing video recordings of class lectures on the Web is easy: record video, upload to Web. Why is there a need to do it through iTunes? AFAIK, iTunesU is just a way for Apple to try to get campus lock-in. I know this sounds kind of rant-ish, but I'm being 100% serious and honest. My school started using iTunesU, which didn't seem to have any advantages over just putting video online, except that I couldn't use it, since I can't run iTunes on my computer (Linux). I'd honestly like to know what benefits iTunesU has for anyone besides Apple and Microsoft, in the sense that if it became truly widespread, it would prevent any widespread movement to adopt Linux on campus.
- iqster 15y agoI see your point about not having access to the iTunes content on Linux. Fair point that should be addressed. That said, I'm a big fan of iTunesU. I like the ability to download courses on my iOS devices and listening to the lectures on trains or at the gym. Also, they must save a lot on bandwidth by letting people download the videos (I go through the lectures a couple of times at least).
- docgnome 15y agoI don't think it's the downloading anyone objects to.
- qu 15y agoYou are saying this as if you cannot download videos and view them on an iOS device from any other source. I believe it is possible to just download a video and start watching. How does the iTunes software help to make that process better? Also many people do not have an iOS product.
- iqster 15y agoThe iTunes software sucks quite badly. Don't get me started. However, the end-user experience for downloading videos from iTunesU and playing it on an iOS is excellent. It is almost a one-click experience. This is just my opinion as a user. I'm curious, on a vanilla iOS device, what application would you use to download a video on a website and have it cache onto your device? I agree that if you don't have an iOS device, this doesn't work.
- javert 15y agoWell, guess we should all go buy iOS devices, so we can have a great one-click experience watching lectures produced by public universities that are paid for by taxpayer dollars and ought to be freely accessible. (Sorry if I'm rubbing it in too hard, you've been very gracious in this discussion.)
- BioGeek 15y ago